Went back east for my high school reunion. Took 3 nephews fishing in a tiny pond at the camp of my brother-in-law’s brother. The two youngest caught fish all day – bass and bluegill. They are already good casters, but couldn’t quite get the fish off the hooks so well. I helped, then told them they had to learn. It was fun seeing that not only did they learn to get the hooks out, but also how needle nose pliers work. That night we all slept in a tiny “office” that was to be used for writing. It had windows all around. A lightning storm came through overnight, and the room was lit up all night – a real treat for me since lightning is rare in Alaska. Next morning the boys were up before me, fishing.

We fished a couple ponds the next day at a college friend who moved down to my hometown. He and his wife have no kids, so they open the floodgates, too. Pizza. Wings. All the Mountain Dew you can drink.

Then the high school class reunion party. The five years since the 25th reunion had flown by. I think everyone from 25 was there at 30, with more welcome additions. I have to say many looked better now than at the 25th with lost weight – I did not. Two classmates talked about coming up hunting – the first such talk – and so hope they can make it.

Next up to the Georgian Bay camp of my aunt. My uncle and his brothers bought some islands in the Henvey Inlet in the late 40’s, and then Canada made a park around their inholdings, so the place has not changed since I went there as a kid. My nieces and nephews see the place as I did and still do – a magic place to fish, swim, eat lots of candy, and get a sunburn. We caught quite a few bass and a pike. I’d bought the kids a make-your-own lure kit, and they caught fish on lures they painted themselves. We saw black bears everyday, along with mink, muskrat, beaver, otter, comorants, loons, and blue heron. I told Sara if I had to move out of Alaska, I could move there.

After a week on the slope, I welcomed my cousin and his brother in law today off the cruise ship. Another brother in law won a pile at a casino, and took 26 on a cruise – that’s what you do with that kind of money to be happy, I think. So, three of us went fishing and had the best coho fishing I can remember here. We caught 9 coho – 8 of them large – along with a couple pink salmon. I barbecued a few salmon steaks and deer meat for them before taking them to back to their ship.

Next, I slung the bag of cleaned fish over my back and santa claused my neighbors with a fish each up and down the street. Two sets of octagenarions, a policeman/teacher, florist, and another young couple. Like the guy that won at the casino, that’s how you finish a jackpot day of fishing.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Went hooter hunting for the last time this year today, while Ron fished for king salmon below.  A dry, beautiful day on Admiralty Island.  I got 2 birds, in somewhat unusual fashion.  The first one was on fairly level ground, in a high tree, and sitting up near the top of the tree.  These are the most difficult to see, since you can’t climb uphill of the tree to get a better view, and the trees around the tree the hooter is in hampers viewing from below.  I looked and looked.  Then the bird just flew out of the tree down to the ground about 20 yards away.  I slowly walked over to near where I thought it landed, crouched and bobbed up and down, trying to see the bird.  I took a few more steps, and looked again.  I thought maybe the bird had trotted away.  A few more steps, and there he was on a hummock ten yards away. 

The next bird was further up the hill.  This bird was really able to throw his voice.  I went by where I thought the bird was by about 20 yards.  When he hooted again, I back tracked.  He hooted again, and it seemed I’d gone to far, and also seemed like the bird had mysteriously moved.  I waited for quite awhile for the next hoot, wondering if this was another bird like last week that was actually on the ground, and might have moved off.  Finally, he hooted and I was sure he was up in the tree I was under.  This tree was on the slope, so I climbed up and finally saw his head clearly.  I cocked the single shot 12 gauge and fired.  I must have missed, as the bird flew, but glided to a very low branch about 10 yards from me.  I slowly walked to where I’d seen it last, and there he was on the branch about 10 feet off the ground in plain sight.  I reloaded, and got my second bird.

I started cross-hilling and slowly heading for the beach, as I had to be out at noon to get back to town to man a booth for the Juneau Watershed Partnership for Juneau’s Maritime Festival today.  I hoped to hear some birds parallel to me or lower down the hill, but the only birds hooting were up at the base of the ridge.  I did move a deer well in front of me in the pucker brush, but did not hear any more birds on my way down.

The skunk cabbage was now if full bloom, apparently recovering from the early season grazing by hungry deer who now must have new growth from other plants to eat.  The blueberry bushes were budding out and getting ready to blossom, although up till today it’s been a chilly May.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Spent yesterday getting the trapping stuff out of the boat and clearing the decks so we could fish. My friend Jeff, after what seemed like careful consideration of any excuse not to go, said he was in.

I put the new used 8 hp Yamaha outboard on, and found I needed a gas hose for it. Two of those I had had hard squeeze balls, but the third had a squeezer. Then the fitting didn’t fit. No big king nets in the garage, either, so the smaller coho net would have to do. So off to Western Auto for a fitting and some herring.

I got the fitting on, the kicker mounted, gas mixed, and the boat hooked up to the truck. I awoke ahead of the alarm at 325 am, got the coffee going, and made some egg and prosciutto sandwiches. I left the house after 4 am, and Jeff pulled into the boat ramp parking lot shortly after I did.

The morning was overcast, in the 40’s, and I told Jeff it looked fishy. Maybe I always say that… Jeff had his usual new rig. This time an itty bitty bronze/silver dodger and a strip of herring. I had the usual cut plug on a big troll hook and bead chain.

The tide was at 546 pm, and I couldn’t believe there were no other boats or people fishing off the rocks. About 535, Jeff’s rod bent double, and I thought for sure he was on the bottom since we were in 12 feet or so of water. But sure enough, we knew it was a fish when it rolled as he set the hook.

I did my normal hoot and hollering while Jeff played his fish and I gave advice like “don’t lose him”. Jeff took his time, and the fish was tired as we got it in the small net on the first try. A beauty with purple sides, big black spots and lots of sea lice by the anal fin. Probably a 16 or 18 lber.

Jeff had a mile-wide smile. It may have been the first time we’ve ever fished together where he caught the fish, and that made me even happier than if I’d caught it. A few boats and shore fishers showed up, but we didn’t see any more caught before we left about 7 so Jeff could clean his fish and get to work by 8.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

After asking some 10 of my so called friends to go hooter hunting with no takers, I headed off to Admiralty Island myself. I left for our cabin late in the day, and when I awoke early the next morning, the hooters were booming across the channel from Admiralty. The male blue grouse get high up in the evergreen trees, and make a hooting sound from a highly flexible sac in their throat – hence their local name “hooter”.

Low tide wasn’t till 230 pm, so I spent the morning splitting firewood to get a good dry on the wood to replenish what we burned over the winter.

I headed over to Admiralty about 1230 in the afternoon. I anchored out the the boat downwind from a point, shouldered my pack, put the side-by-side 12 gauge across the crook of my elbow, and headed across the tide flat. I entered the rainforest and headed up the hill in the general direction of the closest bird hooting. I could tell the birds on this stretch of the beach were higher up the hill, so up I went. Most all the skunk cabbage had been nipped off by blacktail deer, and there was deer scat everywhere I went. So much so I found it hard to believe the only deer I saw all day was one I jumped right next to my cabin.

When I finally got up to the level of the mountain the birds were at, my legs were stinging and tired. I hadn’t worked out much this last hitch on the north slope as we worked many 16.5 hour days, so I chose sleep over exercise. But hooter hunting is a funny thing. It’s not like other hunting where you head out hoping to cross paths with your game. When you hear a bird hooting, you know you are heading to a sure thing.

Birds in trees on level ground are easier to get to, but harder to see. You get a sore neck by the end of the day craning to see up them up high, trying to find windows of clear sight between the branches of the tree the birds are in and the neighboring tree’s branches. I’ve given up on a bird or two in the past because I just could never see them, even though I could hear them hooting directly above me.

Birds higher up the hill are higher to get to but easier to see, since you can climb uphill from the trees the birds are in, and therefore get up to almost their level.

I’ve learned, too, that patience pays off. Sometimes, the birds will hoot and hoot, and then go silent feeding on spruce or hemlock needles. When they do this, they may shake the branch they are feeding on, giving their location away. Other times, the birds will move out the branch they are on, or change position on the branch they’re on, putting them into a position you can see them.

Then, it’s a matter of picking out the head and the tail, and then taking the shot. Many hunt with a 22, but I only carry a 12 gauge shot gun when I hunt alone. Brown bears are out of their dens now, and I did see a lone print in the snow up the hill. I carry a slug in one barrel, and buckshot in the other, until I get to the tree the bird is in. I switch out to bird shot once I see the bird.

I got four birds by the end of the day. My pack was heavy. The birds themselves are chicken sized, and I pack snow around each one in a plastic bag to cool them down. I was wishing I’d taken my pack frame, as well as not forgot my gloves, since my hands were now full of devils club.

I helped an older friend move a welder the next day, and he was happy to take one of the cleaned birds off my hands. He said the birds hooting behind his house drive him nuts knowing he’s not going to be able to go hunting for them.

The birds are hard to cook and not be dry. I learned a good way last year to overcome this by carving all the meat off the breast and legs, cutting it into pieces,marinating it in soy sauce/beer or wine/olive oil, then stringing the meat on skewers for shish kabob. I put the meat sticks on a hot grill, and don’t leave them long on either side. Easy and they taste great.

It’s taken about 2 days to recover from the hooter hunt. I realized I probably push myself further hooter hunting than I do some days deer hunting because you know you are headed to what you know will be a bird up the tree. It’s easy to go from one to the next since they call you right to them. And, you know you’re only taking males, so I don’t worry about denting the population. After a year or two of what seemed like lower numbers, last year and this year seemed to be a plentiful year for the big grouse.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Last days working on the ice road and the drill site at Pt. Thomson. Big, big sun now. My eyes physically hurt if I take off my sunglasses. I’ve seen a few ravens with lemmings in their mouth. Yesterday the ice road was in the final stage of closure. The delineators had all been removed, and a back hoe was proceeding from the drill site to Badami digging out the areas of the ice road that were over streams.

Some good stories told by one of those there with me in the end. He talked about stories he’d heard working as community health worker in some Eskimo villages in western Alaska. One was how hard life was before “white people came”, according to an elder. I’ve often wondered how any animals, much less people, could survive the winter with so little food available in the high arctic. The health worker related how much on the edge the people were then. Families necessarily had to be small. Food gathered had to be put in caches for the winter when food was scarce. If the male hunter was sick or injured, it could mean starvation. Newborns might have to be left behind when food was scarce. Families that ran out of food in the winter might not be given food by other families from their food cache if food was scarce. Kind of a wake-up to the often romanticized way of life we think of in “the good old days”.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I’m up on the slope finishing the second week of a 3 week hitch that will probably end short as the project is about over. I’m working over on Pt. Thomson, about 50 miles by ice road from Prudhoe Bay, at Exxon Mobil’s gas project. The camps have been dismantled and nearly all moved to town. Just a few odds and ends to put on tractor trailers and sent to town. Then the delineators on either side of the road will be removed, the road closed, and another ice road will melt into the tundra.

The ice road was incredibly slippery today. Usually an ice road is “scratched” after water is put down to provide traction, but today the wind was blowing, and even on straight stretches, the pickup truck would fade to the downhill side as there was no or too little scratching to provide adequate traction. Luckily, only the 2nd half of the road near town was like that, but that’s still 20 miles or so of bad road to negotiate. I wanted to kiss solid ground when I got to gravel road today.

Weather is starting to inch above zero most of the day, and nearly 17 hours of daylight now. The sun and glare off the snow hurt my eyes without sunglasses today.

Hooters have started hooting in Juneau. I’m eager to get home and in the woods. Should be a few kings around, too.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com